1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to thermal control of an information handling system and in particular to enabling Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) progress code based thermal control during start-up of the information handling system.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continue to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes, thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Providing thermal management and cooling to an information handling system is important to prevent overheating and to maintain system reliability. During the initial start-up and boot loading operations of the information handling system, there is a deficiency of cooling system hardware information to allow normal cooling system operations. Some information handling systems that utilize large amounts of system memory can cause significant delays in the time it takes for the boot loading operation to complete. This results in an extended time period before the normal cooling system is operational.
Various methods have been used during early boot loading stages to try to cool an information handling system. For example, the cooling system fan speeds can be set at a fixed speed for only a fixed time duration during start-up operations. This fixed time duration is pre-set and based on a timer. A key problem with this approach is that the variability in boot times are highly configuration dependent. As a result, the information handling system may be over-cooled or under-cooled during this fixed time. One other problem with using a fixed high fan speed is that the system is overcooled and the high fan speeds generate undesirable acoustics in the form of excessive fan noise over the entire start-up operation time period. If the fan speed is set at a fixed low level that has desirable acoustics during the boot loading operation, the system may experience overheating in some components of the information handling system such as high power PCI cards.